The present invention generally relates to automatic document processing. The invention relates more specifically to automatically outputting or printing different portions of a hybrid electronic document using different output devices.
Computers and output devices such as printers are now extensively used in word processing and other document management tasks. In the past, the most widely used output device for these applications has been a printer that produces output in a single color, normally black (xe2x80x9cmonochrome printerxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9csingle-color printerxe2x80x9d). Examples of monochrome printers include dot-matrix printers, daisy-wheel printers, and laser printers, such as the LP-M32 Series and the LP-M38 Series that are commercially available from Ricoh Corporation.
Recently, printers capable of printing a paper document in multiple colors (xe2x80x9ccolor printersxe2x80x9d) have become available. Generally, color printers can print in black, red, blue, and yellow, or a combination of these colors. Thus, using color printers, a computer can print a document that includes both color and non-color pages.
For purposes of discussion in this document, xe2x80x9ccolor pagesxe2x80x9d of an electronic document are pages that contain printable objects, such as text or graphics, which are rendered in color and cannot be printed in color, accurately or efficiently on a monochrome printer. Conversely, xe2x80x9cnon-color pagesxe2x80x9d are pages that contain only objects that may be printed on a black and white printer. Thus, in this context, xe2x80x9ccolor pagesxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cnon-color pagesxe2x80x9d may be mutually exclusive.
By including color pages in a document, the effectiveness of the information that is contained within a document is significantly enhanced. For example, multiple colors can effectively communicate complex information, such as numeric data that is presented in a pie chart. Monochrome or black-and-white text, however, is easier to visually perceive and is known to result in less eye fatigue than color text.
Documents that include both color and non-color pages present an output processing problem, though, because the color pages cannot be printed using a black and white printer. When a monochrome printer is the only printer that is available in the user""s environment, the document cannot be printed.
To resolve this problem, documents that include both color and non-color pages can be routed to a color printer, which can then be used to print both the color and non-color pages. However, a drawback associated with using a color printer to print non-color pages is that the cost of printing pages on a color printer is generally significantly higher than the cost of printing pages on a black and white printer. For example, it is not uncommon for the cost to print a non-color page on a color printer is often five (5) to ten (10) times greater than the cost of printing the non-color page on a black and white printer. Thus, by printing documents that contain both color and non-color pages on a color printer can significantly increase the cost of generating the document.
In addition, a black and white printer generally prints much faster than color printers of comparable cost. Thus, it is inefficient to print monochrome pages on a color printer.
These problems become more acute for documents that contain a small number of color pages in proportion to the black-and-white pages in the document. For example, it is not efficient or cost-effective to print a 100-page document on a color printer when only one page of the document contains color.
One method for reducing costs associated with printing a document that contains both color and non-color pages is to manually identify the color and non-color pages, and manually redirecting each page to either a color or black and white printer based on whether the particular page is a color or non-color page.
However, a drawback of this approach is that documents often contain a large number of pages. Many of these documents contain color and non-color pages that are mixed throughout the document. Thus, searching a large document to identify the color and non-color pages, and redirecting each page to either a color or black and white printer based on its contents, can be an inefficient and time-consuming task.
In addition, once the pages are printed on separate color or non-color printers, the pages must be manually merged back together to produce a single document. This is a tedious and time-consuming process. In addition, the process is prone to error as certain pages may unintentionally be inserted out of order.
The foregoing problems also exist with respect to output devices other than printers.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need for a method or mechanism that can automatically route pages of a document to a particular output device based on the characteristics or contents of each page.
There is also a need for a method or mechanism that can identify monochrome pages and color pages within an electronic document that has both types of pages.
There is a further need for a way to automatically cause the color pages to be printed at a color printer and the monochrome pages to be printed at a monochrome printer.
There is also a need for a method or mechanism that can be used to automatically merge the pages of a document that are printed using different printing devices. There is a particular need for a method or mechanism that can automatically merge the color pages and monochrome pages, after they are printed, into a single merged document.
The foregoing needs and objects, and other needs and objects that will become apparent from the following disclosure, are fulfilled by the present invention, which comprises, in one aspect, a method for printing an electronic document that comprises a first set of pages having a first characteristic and a second set of pages having a second characteristic, the method comprising identifying the first set of pages and the second set of pages within the electronic document based on the contents of the document; selecting first and second output devices that are respectively compatible with the first and second characteristics; routing the first and second sets of pages to the first and second output devices, respectively; routing, to the first output device, identifying information that describes the relative position of the first set of pages within the electronic document; and automatically merging the first and second sets of pages into a merged document, based on the identifying information, after the first and second sets of pages are output.
One feature of this aspect is that identifying the first and second sets of pages comprises identifying one or more tokens that identify the first set of pages; scanning the document to locate an instance of the tokens; and identifying a page of the document that contains the instance of the tokens. A related feature is that routing identifying information comprises generating page ordering information and sending the page ordering information to one of the first and second output devices.
According to another feature, routing identifying information comprises generating page ordering information and printing the page ordering information on an identifier page that is routed to one of the first and second output devices. A related feature is that routing identifying information comprises generating page ordering information and printing the page ordering information on the first set of pages.
In another feature, automatically merging the first and second sets of pages further comprises transporting the first and second sets of pages to a merge station.
According to still another feature, automatically merging the first and second sets of pages further comprises merging the first and second sets of pages based on the identifying information. Yet another feature is that routing identifying information further comprises generating page ordering information including a sequence number value, a first page position identifier value, and a following page position identifier value, and routing the values to the first output device.
Still another feature is storing, in association with one or more of the first pages, one or more current page printing characteristics that are associated with one of the first pages in the electronic document. A related feature involves attaching the one or more current page printing characteristics to information that defines a next page among the set of first pages. Still another related feature is storing, in association with a current page among the first pages, one or more current page printing characteristics that are associated with the current page in the electronic document and that identify printing characteristics that are in effect at the end of the current page.
According to another feature, the method involves routing each page in the first set of pages and the second set of pages to both the first output device and the second device; and removing, from the first set of pages that is sent to the second output device, one or more PDL commands that causes printing, whereby the first set of pages is printed only by the first output device. A related feature involves removing, from the second set of pages that is sent to the first output device, one or more PDL commands that causes printing, whereby the second set of pages is printed only by the second output device.
In another feature, automatically merging comprises scanning each page of the first set of pages to identify identifier pages therein that contain the identifying information; discarding the identifier pages; and using the identifying information to select a next page to merge. A related feature is that automatically merging includes temporarily storing the first set of pages in a buffer while the second set of pages is being output; and merging the first and second sets of pages when the second set of pages have been output. Still another related feature is that automatically merging includes testing whether a previous page is identifier page; and sending a current page to a merge station for merging when the previous page is an identifier page.
According to another feature, the method includes generating page-ordering information that identifies a particular ordering of pages from said first set of pages and said second set of pages, and defines how to order the pages after the pages are output by the first and second output devices. A related feature is that generating page-ordering information comprises generating an identifier page that includes the page-ordering information; and routing the additional page to the first output device and to the second output device.
According to another related feature, generating page-ordering information includes generating one or more bar codes that encode the page-ordering information, and outputting an identifier page that contains the bar codes on the first output device before the first set of pages. In still another feature, merging the first set of pages and the second set of pages into a merged document comprises combining the first and second sets of pages based upon the page-ordering information.
In other aspects, the invention encompasses a computer apparatus, a computer-readable medium, and a carrier wave configured to carry out the foregoing steps.